Connecting my laptop to my televisions

joann23456May 16, 2009

I'd like to be able to connect my laptop to two televisions in our house. The laptop has a 4-pin S-video port for video and a headphone port for sound. One television has an S-video connector, the other is RCA.

I have a long S-video cable, and I think I need to buy a male S-video to male RCA adapter to connect to the older television, right?

About the sound, the S-video cable came with what they called a "jack to phono cable". It has one black connector on one end and two connectors - black and red - on the other end. Is this the correct cable? My television has red, yellow and white female connectors. I tried to plug in the cable I have (I connected red-to-red and white-to-black) and play sound, and it didn't work, but I'm not sure whether it's because I have the wrong cable or need to change some setting on the computer.

For sure you need to select the right output on your computer, in Windows that's often done by right clicking the desktop and selecting "Properties". In one of the tabs you can select an external monitor. Sound should work without changing any settings, try with a headphone first if your audio is switched on.

About the RCA plugs: red and white are audio, yellow is composite video.

We use two different laptops at times on our tv to what online shows. One uses just the svideo and the other a hdmi. With either of those we do not need to use any rca cables. Sometimes it seems to be worth getting a newer tv. To complicate things, our cable tv provider is messing things up by requiring a box even for a digital capable tv. geez.